Massage is the manipulation of soft body tissues with physical and functional purposes and there are over eighty recognised styles of massage, which include accupressure, Shiatsu, Ayurvedic and Swedish massage. Some of the benefits of massage are pain relief and a reduction in levels of anxiety and depression. It is done on special massage tables or ergonomic chairs, and special oils or aromatherapy substances are used in the process.

A new type of massage is being offered at an Israeli health and beauty spa. Ada Barak’s snake spa, in Talmei Elazar, northern Israel, uses California and Florida king snakes, corn snakes and milk snakes for the massages. Ms Barak believes that physical contact with the reptiles can be a relaxing experience. Once people get over any initial misgivings, they find physical contact with the snakes to be stress-relieving. The size of the snakes depends on the type of massage - the larger ones are said to alleviate deeper muscle tensions and the smaller ones create a ’fluttering’ effect.The snakes’ slithering causes a rubbing sensation on the body. All the snakes used are non-venomous, but if the idea of snakes is too much, a rodent-style massage where mouse and rats are placed on the bottom of people’s feet is offered instead.

The Flintstones

The Flintstones, which is an animated American sitcom that ran from 1960 to 1966 on ABC television, is about a working-class Stone Age man’s life with his family and his next-door neighbour and best friend. Fred Flintstone, his wife Wilma, strong-willed and level-headed, their daughter Pebbles and a dinosaur pet that barks like a dog live in Bedrock, next to Barney Rubble, his wife Betty and their abnormally strong adopted son Bamm Bamm.The Rubbles also have a pet, a cross between a dinosaur and a kangaroo, named Hoppy. Fred and Barney work at a quarry, and their boss, Mr Slate, has a fiery temper. Wilma and Fred argue often because of Fred’s laziness, and because Fred sometimes flirts with other women. Fred Flintstone’s exclamation ’Yabba Dabba Dooo!’, shouted in the opening credits as well as any time Fred became happy or excited, is widely known.

At least two Flintstones-themed amusement parks exist in the USA, one in Custer, South Dakota and another in Arizona. Both have been in operation for decades.

Rollercoasters

Think about riding your bike to the top of a hill, pedalling like mad, then taking your feet off the pedals and hurtling down the other side. A rollercoaster works the same way. The coaster is only powered at the very beginning of the ride, when the train is pulled up the first hill. When it goes over the top of the hill, the only thing that propels the train is the weight of the train itself, pulled downward by gravity. There are no cables that pull the train around the track. When you are plummeting down a steep drop, the various bits of your body are weightless, each falling individually inside your body. This is what gives you that funny sinking feeling in your tummy, like the sensation you get when you’re in a lift going down quite fast.

Rollercoasters started off as ice slides in Russia more than 500 years ago. They were long, steep wooden slides covered in ice. Riders walked up a ladder to the top of the slide, as high as 70 ft (21 m) up, then got into sledges made out of wood or blocks of ice and shot down the slope. The sleds would crash-land in a sand pile.